Something Exact To Ease Traffic

June 21, 1986|By Blue

After Orlando's East-West Expressway adds lanes to its toll plazas this year, drivers will be prodded -- but not hard enough -- to carry exact change. No, shifting toward exact-change lanes can't solve the Orlando area's traffic mess, but it can ease the pain. An exact-change lane can handle about 50 percent more traffic per hour.

Here's the setup. At the eastern toll plaza near Semoran Boulevard, four of the seven lanes that handle morning rush-hour traffic into Orlando require exact change. Expansion will add two westbound lanes -- both with exact-change machines. That's better, but not bold.

Authority officials and consultants believe that huge stackups would persist if they cut the number of change-making lanes down to two out of nine. And yes, lots of drivers here are tourists making too few repeat trips to be taught to carry quarters. But the expressway authority has neglected to do samplings to estimate the ratio of visitors to local drivers.

The authority's plan for that toll plaza looks downright bold, however, compared with its plan for the toll plaza west of the Interstate 4 interchange. There the heavier morning traffic is eastbound, and it flows through four lanes, two of them taking exact change only. After widening, there will be seven lanes in that direction, but only four of them taking exact change. That's too few.

To make a minority of drivers wait a little longer in change-making lines to whisk the majority along is a sensible exchange.